You selected for the group to make a plan, so that's what they did. I hope you enjoy this segment; it's one of my favorites so far!
And here it is: Segment #8 with a brief lead-in from Segment #7 (or read from the beginning):
“Now,
don’t give up,” Henry cajoled. “Try again, but this time, don’t fight whatever
pops into that genius brain of yours. Just let the thoughts flow. You have
thoughts for a reason; that’s the way your mind is supposed to work. Just let
them happen.”
She
tried again. Just like before, Benny’s face popped into her mind the moment the
branch began to shimmy on the ground. This time, she didn’t fight the image.
She let it rest there, a calming, centering thought, while the rest of her was
focused on the branch.
And
the thing rose into the air, a gravity defying miracle that made her whoop in triumph.
“It
worked! It worked!” She hugged Henry, and then she ran back to the rest of the
group. “It worked,” she told them, and she threw her arms around Benny.
He
hugged her back, burying his face in her hair for a moment before releasing
her. When he pulled back to study her face, he couldn’t help but return her
grin.
And
for the first time, she began to believe that she might succeed.
* * *
“We’ve
been here four days.” The deep rumble of Jack’s voice disguised his unease, but
even in the firelight, it was clear in his face. “If we’re not careful,
Venquist is going to find us before we get the chance to go on the offensive.
Sarah, girl, I know you needed to learn how to use that thing. But target
practice is only going to get you so far. I think it’s time we go hunting.”
“We’ll
go when she’s ready,” Benny asserted before Sarah could respond. “Pressure is
only going to slow that process down. I know you’re worried, Jack, but you have
to back off.”
To
prevent an argument, Lassett said quietly, “Venquist will not find us before we
are ready. The foils cannot track one another, and only the Invigilators know
where we are. They will not tell him.”
Sarah
lifted a brow. “Invigilators?”
Lassett
only shook his head. “That is a story for another day. But Jack is right. It is
time that we seek out Venquist. You are ready for this battle,” he assured her.
“There is nothing left for me to teach you. With practice, your skills might
improve incrementally, but the potential benefit of such change is debatable. I
believe the time has come to devise a plan.”
“I
thought you had a plan,” Henry put in, frowning. “She’s going to send him out
of this realm.”
“Can
you even do that?” Benny asked Sarah.
“I
did it today.” She looked away, not wanting to meet his eyes while the memory
of that was still fresh in her mind. She would never be able to explain to
another human being what it felt to send something – anything – outside their
realm of existence. To send inanimate objects had been strange, producing an
utterly unpleasant kind of shifting inside of her, a sense that she’d upset the
natural order of things. To send a living thing, even just a plant, had been
immeasurably more horrifying.
She
dreaded taking that action against a sentient being – even one as foul as
Venquist.
Benny
recognized the look on her face, though he’d never experienced anything like
its source. He put his hand over hers, and she gave him a weak but grateful smile.
“So
we want this to happen on our terms,” he said, squeezing Sarah’s hand. “We need
to pick the location, set up the chain of events so that they go the way we
choose. And then we bring Venquist to us.”
“Yes,”
Lassett agreed in his calm, understated way. His eyes shifted in color as they
measured Benny, and he inclined his head in a gesture of respect. “You will be
there.”
“Of
course,” Benny said, even as Sarah said, “No.”
“Sarah.”
Benny met her eyes with that show of strength that still had the power to take
her by surprise. “You asked me to understand why you couldn’t walk away from
this. You have to understand why I
can’t.”
She
swallowed, her fear suddenly and quite intensely amplified, and then she
nodded. “We need a place far away from people. I don’t want anyone else getting
hurt.”
“And
it needs to be open,” Henry put in. “So we can see him coming.”
Sarah
shook her head and gestured with the foil. “He can basically teleport with this
thing. We might not know he’s there until he’s just…there.”
“So
then we need to be ready,” Benny concluded. “Once he’s there, what do we do?”
“Hide
the foil from him,” Lassett told Sarah. “What we are trying to do has never
been attempted before. As long as we maintain the element of surprise, he will assume
you to be defenseless. And you must let him strike first. This will ensure that
the foil recognizes your right to use it against a paladin.”
“What’s
to stop him from killing her with the first attack?”
“The
blow does not have to land to be recognized. As soon as he launches any sort of
attack against Sarah, she will be able to defend herself. And then,” he shifted
his gaze to Sarah, and the golden brown slid silkily into green, “you
counterstrike. Once you, an oppressed, send him out of the Twelve Realms, he
will never be able to return.”
“So
where do we take our stand?” Henry asked.
“We
can use the farm.” Jack leaned forward, far more comfortable with talk of action
than with the wait that preceded it. “I’m the only one who lives there, and
there’s no one else around for miles.”
“Perfect.
How do we get him to come to us? Do we call those…the…”
“Invigilators,”
Lassett replied with a small smile. “I could contact them, but such a thing
takes time. I would have to leave this realm to do so, which requires the use
of the foil. You would be unprotected in my absence.”
“We
can use the phones,” Benny suggested. “I thought we might need them eventually,
so I took them apart instead of destroying them. They’d be easy to fix. All I
did was turn them off, remove the GPS and SIM cards, and take out the batteries.”
When the others just stared at him, he shrugged sheepishly. “It might have been
overkill.”
Sarah smiled, a far brighter gesture than the
one she’d given him minutes before. It was one of her sweet, appreciative
smiles, the kind that was only for them, and for three heartbeats, he forgot
where they were. He forgot what they were doing, forgot what was to come.
Looking at that smile, at the way it lit her eyes so beautifully, he realized
that this was a moment. A point in
time that he would always remember, that he would visualize in the future when he
needed to simply see her face.
And
abruptly, he realized what a fool he’d been. He’d wasted the last four years of
his life watching her from the seemingly impassable distance of friendship, too
afraid of losing that friendship to risk asking for more. And now they were on
the cusp of something unfathomable. They were actually planning a scenario in
which she would risk her life, and all his fear and hesitation suddenly
seemed so childish.
And
unforgivably stupid.
“Sounds
like we got ourselves a plan,” Henry said, knowing his son well enough to
understand the look on his face. “I think it’s time we all turn in. We got
ourselves a big day tomorrow.”
* * *
Benny
lay on his back, staring at the stars – an impressive array that should have
brought him peace. Instead, he struggled to hold down his dinner.
Since
they’d been here, he’d been lulled into a false sense of calm. Watching Sarah
train, talking to his father – something he’d come to realize was an entirely
different experience when Henry was sober. And, he understood now as an awful
fear churned in his gut, believing on some unspoken level that a hero would
swoop in to save them all. That this fight, which couldn’t possibly be a human
fight, would be taken out of their hands.
And
then he wouldn’t have to watch the love of his life put herself in harm’s way
to stop a psychotic killer.
If
the asshole had had the decency to come after Benny instead, then he would be the one taking a stand
tomorrow. And Sarah would be safely far away. It was a small comfort that he’d
be there when Venquist attacked. There was no way he was going to let that
first strike get close to hurting Sarah.
But
that just didn’t seem to be enough.
Giving
up on sleep, he rose to take a walk along the river. If he couldn’t get any
rest, then at least he could figure out all the ways he might need to protect
Sarah tomorrow, so that she could do what she’d set out to do.
* * *
Sarah
heard the rustle as Benny stood. They’d taken to sleeping next to one another,
a habit she secretly thrilled in. When he didn’t return after a few minutes,
she walked to the river’s edge to check on him. She found him easily, a
silhouette in the moonlight that was familiar enough to warm her heart and
mysterious enough to give it a little flutter. Taking a moment to relish the
feeling, she just watched him. And then she walked over.
“You
okay?”
Her
voice was soft in the dark, a little worried, a little sleepy. At the sound of
it, Benny sighed. “Yeah. Just couldn’t sleep.”
“Wanna
talk about it?”
He
studied her face. Even in the moonlight, he could see the circles under her
eyes. The last thing he needed to do was add to her worry.
“I
just can’t stop thinking about…” He paused, letting her mind conjure all the
things that could have kept him up. And then he finished, “A shower. I don’t
think I’ve ever smelled so bad in my life.”
When
she laughed in surprise, he smiled, immensely glad simply to have brought her
some humor on the eve of such an event.
“I
think we all smell terrible. Trying to bathe in the river probably only made it
worse. It’s gotten to where I don’t even notice it anymore.”
Benny
smiled. “Maybe that’s all the weapon we need. The five of us can just surround
Venquist and banish him with our collective stench. Except maybe Lassett. I don’t
think he sweats.”
“He
sweats,” she supplied. “I’ve seen it. I think his body works just like ours,
except that it’s not quite…real. And his blood is actually his soul. Or
something like that.”
“I
can’t even wrap my head around it. And I don’t know why, but it totally weirds
me out that he eats.”
Sarah
laughed again, tears coming to her eyes. “I know. And what was with the Invigilators?
What the hell was that?”
Benny
shook his head, grinning. “Don’t even ask. I don’t want to know. This is already
too much for me to process.”
Caught
up in the moment, he ran a hand over her hair. Imagining what it smelled like
after she washed it almost brought a fresh wave of hilarity mingled with the
nostalgia. Then her smile softened, deepened, and he was reminded of that moment by the fire. Giddiness quieted,
and he took her hand.
“Walk
with me?”
His
heart was starting to beat uncomfortably hard in his chest. He knew what he
wanted to say. He’d been planning it for years, choosing the perfect words, the
perfect setting, the perfect time. And now, when he was faced with the
knowledge that there might never be a better time, all those plans seemed to
have dissipated.
And
he was left with only a pounding heart, the sound of the river, and the feel of
her hand warm in his.
“I
keep thinking about the movies,” she said, unwittingly granting him a reprieve
that was not entirely welcome. “You know, how any time they show you the plan
beforehand, something always goes wrong. It’s only when you don’t know what’s
going to happen that things seem to work out.”
When
Sarah felt a tug on her hand, she realized Benny had stopped walking. She
turned to find him staring at her, and he looked quite simply struck.
“I
have to tell you something,” he said, and it was as if the words had been
pushed from his chest. “I’ve been wanting to for years, and I…. But I was…” He
stopped, took a breath.
And
the words simply came.
“I’m
in love with you.” Her mouth popped open, a tiny “O” of surprise that looked
utterly kissable, and his blood rushed. “I have been since the day I met you. I
should have told you, but I didn’t want to lose you. And since this started, I’ve
been kicking myself for that. For wasting four years of holding you, being with
you, being your person.” He touched
her cheek and saw with no small amount of fear that tears had welled in her
eyes. “If you’ll let me, the moment you send that asshole into oblivion, I’m
going to make up for lost time.”
Sarah
couldn’t get her breath. She couldn’t think through the feeling coursing
through her. Couldn’t, for the life of her, have said a word. She managed,
somehow, to force her head into a small nod. He smiled, nerves transforming
into joy. And then his smile shifted into a wicked and surprisingly sexy grin,
and she shivered.
And
then he kissed her.
It
was more than a meeting of the lips; that was certain. But oh, there was
something to be said for the sheer passion of the kiss. The feel of his arms
around her, the things he was doing with his mouth that inexplicably made her
knees go weak. Shockingly, deliciously, she had to hold onto his neck to stay
upright.
And
tunneling through and over and around it all was the knowledge – the utter certainty – that he had always been, and
always would be, her person.
And
then he was ripped away from her.
Sarah
had one heartbeat to process the sight of Benny being flown through the air,
wrapped in an orb of unbreakable blue. Another heartbeat to recognize Venquist,
floating over the river, with a horrible smile that seemed to break the lines
of his face. She said No with lungs still
light on air from the kiss.
And
then Benny vanished.
“NO!” She aimed her foil at Venquist,
instinct and training taking over thought, anguish, and fear.
Venquist’s
smile widened, and then he vanished, too. In a flash, the stories she’d heard and
the things she’d seen over the last few days flashed through her mind. Soldiers
being vaporized with a flash of blue light. Possibilities so overwhelming that
they could not be contained within this realm.
Venquist’s
mad plan to develop a new and wholly different universe.
And
she knew where he’d taken Benny. Desperate, unwilling to believe that she might
be wrong, Sarah aimed the foil at herself.
And
then – with a mix of thought, magic, and faith – she sent herself into the fabled
thirteenth realm.
